


Happier Now

by Mortissimo



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, F/M, Minor Spock/Nyota Uhura, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sex as Coping Mechanism, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 18:54:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11469621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortissimo/pseuds/Mortissimo
Summary: There's a particular kind of eye contact you make with someone when you catch each other staring at the same thing. Or, in this case, the same person.James Kirk and Christine Chapel catch each other looking in the same direction.





	Happier Now

“I'm a friend of Christine Chapel's,” Carol says, significantly, like Jim is supposed to remember the names of every person he's ever met, while in the middle of scrambling to save his ship.

“How is she?” Jim hazards, and immediately it's clear _that_ was the wrong answer. If there even was a right answer. Carol brushes past him on her way back from the cockpit, all ice and disdain.

“She transferred to the outer frontier to be a nurse. She's much happier now.” There's a faint, hazy memory of sickbay, but Jim is much more distracted by exactly what Carol (apparently _Marcus_ ) is doing to one of his shuttles than he is by this accusational line of questioning. Which he's beginning to think was the point of the exercise.

“That's good,” he tries again, neutrally, but that also seems to be the wrong answer, as Carol shakes her head and maneuvers around him to flip more switches on his shuttlecraft.

“You have no idea who I'm talking about, do you?” Finally, she turns and addresses him directly, eye-to-eye, and no. Jim does not remember Christine Chapel. Jim has just piloted a strange ship through a damn slot canyon, gotten his ass handed to him by Klingons, and then conducted one of the worst interrogations of his life, where somehow, even with Harrison on the wrong side of the glass, Kirk still hadn't managed to come out on top. No. He doesn't know who Christine Chapel is. Sue him.

Jim changes the subject.

 

It isn't until much later that he remembers, when it's much too late for anything, when Jim's neurons are firing sporadically in their last-ditch effort to hold together his irradiated corpse, when the last sight he's taking with him to the grave is a set of dark, soft eyes, filmed with tears and growing hot and flinty with rage. When the last person he'd ever thought would shed a tear for anyone at all is swiftly losing himself in grief for, of all people, Jim. That's when it comes to him, in a last-minute flash of recollection.

 

There's a particular kind of eye contact you make with someone when you catch each other staring at the same thing. Or, in this case, the same person.

Jim thought it might've been the cadets' mess where he saw her first, breaking off his conversation with Bones to watch the subject of the conversation walk by in the flesh, tall and pale and straight as though he'd been carved out of marble like a pointy-eared Galatea.

“Speak of the Devil,” he muttered, and kicked Bones in the shin, earning him a grumble and a halfhearted glance.

“Hobgoblin's already out to get you, Jim, don't go antagonizing him.” But Spock hadn't seen him, halfway across the mess already and striding with a purpose. Jim watched his back (and a little lower, if he's honest) until it disappeared around a corner with the rest of him and went to turn back to Bones, only to have his eyes snag on a piercing blue on the other side of the room. At first he thought she'd been staring at him to begin with, because that happened, so he winked at her, but when her sharp features twisted into a guilty frown and she dropped her gaze, he realized why they'd been looking in the same direction.

“Huh,” he said, contemplative, and looked back at Bones. “Do you know who that is?”

“Yes, I know who Commander Spock is. Did you hit your head? Is your vision blurring?” Bones leaned in and asked him slowly and clearly, eyebrows halfway into his hairline, voice dense with insincerity.

“No, asshole, not him. Her.” But when Jim turned to gesture the way of the embittered brunette, she was already gone, and Bones was still making sarcastic comments about Jim's mental capacity after too many blows to the head.

 

Jim didn't recall picking her out of a crowd before, but she was just interesting-looking enough to find again, since they were bound to travel in vaguely the same areas. What he learned about the girl was this: She was taller than he'd thought—probably nearly his height, though he hadn't gotten close enough to tell, and from her occasional white coat and blue scrubs, she was on the medical track. Bones didn't know who she was by description, so either Jim wasn't great at painting a verbal picture, or she was on the RN or psych path, not the MD. It wasn't even that she was a particularly beautiful woman, but she was striking, and she had an intense air about her that Jim found fascinating. And she was, apparently, _visibly_ enamored with Mr. Spock, which meant she'd probably never had the opportunity to speak to Spock, even though half of the glimpses Jim caught of her were accidental, eyes meeting across a crowded room after they'd both glanced away from an arched eyebrow and that stupid, pin-straight and perfect bowl cut.

And then Gaila had caught the transmission, and Vulcan had imploded, and Jim had too much to worry about to follow up on his fellow Spock-stalker.

 

It was after one of the first missions, where Jim was new enough to command that he was still working on getting everyone's names down, that those baby blues slid past him again. He and Spock had ended up in sickbay together, not for the first or last time, after what was supposed to be a milk run first contact, well, wasn't. Spock had managed to get out of it with little more than a few scrapes and one nasty-looking necklace of viridian bruises that was nearly gone after thirty seconds with (lucky dog) a platinum blonde with a dermal regenerator.

Jim, on the other hand, got stuck with (and by) Bones, adding insult (“dumber'n a box of hammers”) to injury (“three cracked ribs, a clavicle hairline fracture, and the worst case of road rash ever picked up on a planet with no damn roads”). Jim obediently turned on his side so Bones could cut away what was left of his shirt and get a good look at the condition of his back, which conveniently both got him out of the line of Bones' verbal fire, and got him a better look at the much more fortunate biobed next to his. Spock's head was tilted back, coal-black eyelashes brushing his high cheekbones, as the nurse leaned over him to get at the last of the ring of bruises around his neck. Amused, Jim watched as her hip pressed against Spock's far hand and he twitched it out of the way expressionlessly, only to flinch and flutter his eyes open as a few of the nurse's blond curls slipped over her shoulder and against his cheek.

“Sorry, Mr. Spock,” she breathed, frozen, her face hidden by the fall of her hair. Something Jim couldn't read flashed over Spock's features—not a smile by a long shot, but not the grimace Jim might have expected. Something a little sad. The nurse stayed still as a stone, as Spock carefully pushed her hair back into place, keeping his touch light and far from skin.

The regenerator beeped the end of its cycle, shattering the moment, and the nurse jerked back as if burned. Spock regarded her as he did everything, cool and inscrutable, his soft mouth a hard line.

“Do I have your permission to resume my station, Nurse Chapel?” He asked her, hands laced tightly together, and when she nodded he left without another sound. When she looked back at Jim and Bones, the expression was unmistakable, even though the hair was different. He'd met those blue eyes enough that he knew them then, knew the sharp profile and the narrow jaw they presided over. He recognized the look in them too, liquid and stung.

“Get back to work, Nurse.” McCoy's voice was not unkind, and Chapel gave a short nod, and one last conspiratorial glance at Jim, before she left.

 

Shore leave, not long after that: Jim had invited the rest of the bridge crew out for drinks, which turned out to be a colossal mistake in nearly every regard. Sulu lost his shirt at a surprisingly early hour, Chekov and Scotty were in a terrifying race to see who could drink the other under the table (Bones had already conceded, and was drunkenly complaining at the bar to a woman Jim didn't recognize), and Spock and Uhura were playing whatever the Vulcan hand version of footsie was. Handsy, probably.

Jim realized that he was watching a little too late to make it not weird if either of them decided to turn his way, but they were wrapped up enough in each other that neither seemed too keen on the outside world. Spock's head was bent toward Uhura's as they murmured together, throwing the long, pale line of his throat into relief. His hands were graceful as they slid against hers, swirling around a knuckle here and slipping between her fingers there. He looked like a hell of a Vulcan kisser. Jim was willing to bet he was a hell of a Human kisser too. It'd be hard not to be, with those lips of his, flushed slightly green in the dim light of the bar. As Jim watched, those lips parted slightly, a too-quick flash of Spock's tongue flicking out and leaving them shining. It was when Uhura leaned in to taste them that Jim realized he needed to be anywhere else.

He slid off his stool with a thump and went to go see how Bones was holding up, only to find the blonde Bones had been talking to was alone, and looking directly at Jim. Never one to disappoint a lady, never mind that she already looked a) flushed and b) frustrated, he wove his way over and took the spot Bones had vacated. By the time he'd made it over, she'd turned her face into something approaching friendliness, even if it was too bitter to be really convincing.

“Hi,” he said. “My name's Jim.” The woman snorted, which was not usually a good sign.

“I know who you are, Captain. I'm on your crew.” The light shifted, turning her eyes from a watery green to their natural blue, and the image clicked. She was doing something different to her hair, Jim thought, or else it looked nearly white in the odd light of the bar.

“Of course. Nurse...”

“Chapel,” she supplied, along with a hand and a wry smile. He shook her hand.

“Of course, Chapel. Welcome to whatever this is.”

“Thank you, Captain. Leonard invited me along, but he seems to have found something else to distract himself with. I hope that's all right?”

“You're fine,” he assured her, trying for a tone that would relax the tight line of her shoulders, and falling short. “And it's Jim, off the ship.” Across the room, the rare peal of Uhura's laughter rang out, clear as a bell, and Jim glanced over in time to see the last embers of Spock's smile before the Vulcan could get himself under control. Even then, even that far away, his eyes shone with a gentle humor. Nurse Chapel turned back a split second slower than Jim did, so Jim got to see every second of the look that knit her eyebrows and twisted her mouth.

“Then it's Christine,” she corrected him, almost too late for him to follow the conversation, with a pale imitation of even the pale imitation of a smile she'd been wearing before. On an impulse, Jim reached out and untangled her fingers from around the square glass they'd been throttling, setting it carefully on the bar beside him with one hand as he curled the other around hers.

“I kind of wanna be somewhere else right now, Christine.” There was a dubious look in her eyes, a suspicion that hurt Jim to look at, and he pressed her hand and held her gaze in an attempt to allay it. “Do you want to go somewhere else with me?” The decision took a long, long few seconds to process, before she turned her grip over and squeezed, wary.

“Let's get out of here.”

 

Like most of the _Enterprise_ 's shore leave options, the station had an array of impersonal rooms, at reasonable hourly rates. Jim paid through the rest of their allotted leave time, glancing back at Christine periodically to make sure he wasn't imagining things, wasn't pushing her in a direction she didn't want to go. When they were finally in the room, he turned and backed her against the door. He'd been right, apparently—they were nearly of a height, with Christine all long, graceful leg. Up close, her features had a delicacy they lost across a crowded room, with her patrician nose and her pink lips. Jim slid an arm around her waist and a hand up to the complex knot of her hair, smoothing along one crisp curl, and Christine shivered.

“I don't want you to feel obligated,” he said, too low and maybe too late, but it needed to be said. Christine shook her head, sending her curls shifting across the hand there.

“Let's not kid ourselves, Jim.” The words were harder than her voice by far, which shuddered across the words and nearly dropped them. “This has nothing to do with you being captain. Hell, it barely has anything to do with you and me.” Jim couldn't really contradict her, so he pressed against her instead, feeling the slide of her nylons past the scrape of his denim, feeling the soft press of her breasts.

She sighed as he kissed her, finally, her hands coming up to link behind his back. They both tasted of synthehol, but faintly, hers a waft of something cloying. Jim licked his way into her mouth and she opened to him readily. They kissed against the door for long moments, silent except for the slide of lips and tongue, the rasp of clothing as they shifted steadily closer.

When Christine shifted position, Jim pressed forward, his knee nudging against the door behind her and his thigh pushing her skirt up, revealing a pale shadow of lace under the shine of her tights. Christine gasped into the kiss, but refused to break it, her nails scraping briefly over the cotton of Jim's shirt. He grinned against her mouth and ground up, swallowing a second gasp, and a third, as her hips began to work against his leg. The kiss turned open-mouthed, obscene, and Jim felt his cock twitch with every glancing scrape of her skirt.

Christine's shirt was the first to go, in the briefest parting of their mouths possible. She flinched as her bare back hit the cold steel of the door and Jim pulled away, feeling somewhat gratified when Christine whined softly at the loss of his leg to grind on. He led her back toward the small room's bed without looking, holding her by the connection of their blue eyes alone. When Jim paused to whip off his own shirt, her hands landed on his belt, no longer trembling, but deft and certain.

He bent his head to her neck, while she was distracted, chasing the taste of her pulse with nips and sucking kisses. Her bra was the same pale blue as her uniform, as her eyes, a thin layer of lace over her small breasts and her tight, pink nipples. Christine had gotten his pants unfastened and halfway down his hips when he pulled the lace aside with a thumb and bit one of them gently. Jim grinned at her sharp exclamation and tried it again, to a similar but softer result, rolling the flesh between his teeth and licking at the traces of sweat. When he pulled back, Jim was bemused to find Christine glaring at him, her high cheekbones finally flushed scarlet.

The shove to his shoulders startled him and he fell back onto the bed with a laugh that quickly died out as Christine toed out of her shoes and shoved her skirt down with her tights in one go, leaving her in the matching set of blue lace, taut over pale skin and dark hair at the apex of her thighs. Jim wiggled out of his own jeans as she climbed on top of him, settling her weight solidly on his hips with a directness he found, frankly, pretty refreshing.

The grind found a rhythm quickly, a slow rocking against his cock that brought his hands up to Christine's hips in a tight grip. Her movements almost had nothing to do with Jim, and he took a moment to watch her body shift and twist, her eyes closed and her lower lip caught between her teeth. Slowly, as though afraid to break her trance, Jim slid his hands up her body and back, unhooking her bra and dropping it somewhere in the dark. His hands cupped her breasts and her breath caught, losing the steady slide of her hips. Jim pinched a nipple and Christine yelped, opening her eyes and looking down at him as though surprised to see him between her legs.

His hands drifting back to her hips, Jim got his feet planted and pressed up, holding Christine's gaze this time as she shuddered on top of him. He could feel her now, how wet she was, soaked through her panties and his underwear. He thrust up against her a few moments longer, feeling his cock throb and feeling the answering throb of her pussy against him, listening to her hitched breaths turn into little moans, until the ache in his muscles started to get a little too much. Then Jim used his leverage to tip them over, carefully, and roll over her.

There was no question now that she saw him, at least. Jim bent to kiss her, slipping a hand between them to cup around her heat as he swallowed the quiet sounds she made. He brushed two fingers over her panties and they came away slick, her knees falling open in sharp angles around him.

Jim pulled aside the soaked scrap of lace and slid his fingers inside and up, and this was what he was good at, this was what he knew how to do, flexing his fingertips inside her and swirling his thumb in tight circles around her clit until Christine clenched around him and gave her first full-throated groan. Jim tucked his thumb aside but pushed his fingers into her through it, until the wracking shudders subsided a little. He withdrew his fingers to a soft sound of protest and looked down at her, watching Christine's eyes half-lidded and warm, relaxed a bit for maybe the first time he had seen them.

As he watched, her gaze slid down his body to the outline of his cock, damp from her as much as from him, jutting and twitching. With something like shyness, she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of his underwear and tugged until Jim complied and slid them off, leaving him exposed as she did the same to her panties, crumpling them into a ball and tossing them off into the dark. They regarded each other in silence for a moment.

“May I fuck you?” It came out a little more abrupt than Jim had intended, but Christine grinned at him, so it must have been okay.

“Please do,” she returned swiftly, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him back down to her mouth, kissing him as her knees pressed into his hips. He kissed her for a few moments, indulging in the scraping slide of his bare cock against the slick hair at the inside of her hip, and then pulled back to reach for the nightstand.

“No,” she said, and Jim froze in momentary panic, before Christine grabbed his outstretched hand and settled it firmly against her side. “My implant got replaced two weeks ago, and your most recent workup is clear. Fuck me.”

He blinked at her, briefly too poleaxed to speak.

“Is that not a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality?” He asked finally. Christine rolled her eyes.

“I'm the doctor. You're the patient. This is pretty confidential.” She hooked her ankles together at the small of Jim's back and tugged. He couldn't help the quick snap of his hips against her, shuddering at the slick heat.

“You're sure?”

“I want to feel you come inside me.” And that pretty much settled it. Jim lined himself up and finally, finally pushed inside Christine. Rumor aside, it had been long enough since he went bare inside someone that he had to take a moment to center himself, think unsexy thoughts and try to ignore the dance of Christine's fingernails over his shoulderblades. When he started thrusting into her in earnest, they found their rhythm quickly. Neither of them made much noise over the soft scrape and slide of their bodies. Jim tucked his face into the crook of Christine's throat and she tangled her fingers in his hair, urging him silently faster, harder.

When Jim came, it was in a brief, blinding flash that caught him off-guard, brought him to a shuddering halt as he emptied inside her, groaning into her hair. He slid out carefully, and Christine shifted her hips to follow him anxiously, so Jim slid three fingers back into her, slippery and easy, and slid down the bed to suck at her clit until she arched and shook again, and shoved his face away.

Then he crawled up beside her and they dozed, side-by-side and touching, until Jim's comm beeped to signal the end of their leave.

 

When Captain James Kirk processed Nurse Christine Chapel's transfer request, there was a note attached that read, “Nothing to do with you and me.”

 

So, he lets himself forget, and Christine moves to somewhere, and she's happier now, and Jim Kirk fades out of life a pane of glass away from a kiss.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched all of TOS after having seen all of AOS, and I got real mad on Kirk's behalf. This is about two things that bother me: Carol's suggestion that Jim sexually harassed Christine off the ship, and the missed opportunity to finally let poor Christine, who was canonically in love with Spock for actual years, actually get him for once. I mean, come on, did Abrams not see Plato's Stepchildren? Did his heart not get ripped out? COME ON.
> 
> Anyway, this is to address both of those things, because Kirk is not a womanizing asshole, and poor Christine deserves to a) exist and b) get to be happier now.
> 
> Also also apparently I write AOS Kirk super ADD. Hm. 
> 
> And clearly this is a Kirk/Spock story at heart, but aren't they all? Isn't canon? Yes it is. 
> 
> I wrote this from the hours of 9 pm - 1 am in a single setting, and I've barely slept.


End file.
